Life in today’s busy world is a task in itself. Be it when one is considering our personal lives or our competitive professional lives. The number of opportunities that come our way today is nearly ten folds the opportunities that our predecessors had. This blessing is also disguised a severe hindrance to our mental health and peace. The same chances that help us grow in our lives are also responsible for creating severe stress and trauma to our human brains.
What we humans fail to understand is, our brains and bodies have a specific capacity, and beyond a point, we cannot function. We are unsuccessfully trying to unhook our minds from all these worldly affairs.
At the end of the day, what’s important is how we have balanced our lives and progressed with sanity, all at the same time. It is very convenient to get lost in the mad rush of today’s corporate world. It’s like a black hole where we get deeper into the mess each passing day, with the illusion that we are moving forward. In most cases, people realize their folly only at a much later stage when nothing much is within control.
However, if you are someone who is reading this blog right now, it just means you are conscious of the state you are in. It means you are trying to improve your situation before it gets too late. In this blog, we will discuss meditation in particular, as a remedy to mental stress.
Here are some ways how meditation is changing lives for the good:
Meditation can change how your brain functions. This change for good, in the brain, helps in reducing the stress and trauma one is going through. This change in the brain also results in how the individual responds to problematic situations. This is found to be extremely helpful when someone is suffering from severe anxiety or some form of early depression. Meditation is helping people control their actions, to quieten their minds and also to understand themselves.
1) Impact on the body
The implications of meditation on a human body are miraculous to be true. Expert meditation practitioners can effectively improve their metabolism by up to 60 per cent. They also can raise their body temperature as and when they want to. Experts have suggested that an individual can spend as little as 20 minutes a day on meditation and still gain significantly. One can see improved blood pressure rates, better heart rates and calmer minds. One could also conclude that the lower blood pressure will ensure lower risks of getting a heart attack. Patients have suggested that meditation has been proved to be beneficial when someone is suffering from severe chronic and acute pain.
2) Impact on mind, brain and beyond
Our bodies are a result of what our brains prepare them to be. This is why people must value their brains more and start putting efforts into its welfare. Meditation increases the part of the brain that is responsible for happy feelings, the left frontal side of the brain. Fortunately for us, more activity in the left frontal side of our mind means that our immunity has also been boosted up. And the good news here is, the more someone practices meditation, the more functional is their immunity system.
There have been studies in the past that suggest that meditation has the power to increase the grey matter volume for someone who meditates regularly. This increase in grey matter entails that the person stays more entertained and satisfied at all times. This means that even the smallest of efforts invested in meditating can yield great results. Something as necessary as a couple of weeks of practice can change the structure of the brain.
3) Ageing is impacted by meditation, too
We all want to live long and fulfilled lives. However, life happens and the stress follows, the dream of a fulfilled life fails after a point of time. Our body starts to age, and so does our brains. However, meditation has the power to delay the process of ageing. The centre of the brain or the cortex starts to thin as we age; this is the reason behind failing brain structures or dementia. Meditation practitioners have experienced that the cortex starts thickening with the practice of meditation. Older meditators also exhibit lesser age-related ailments than people who do not practice meditation.
Meditation improves longevity by multiple folds by negating the damaging impacts of stress on our brain and body. When meditation is combined with specific Yoga exercises, it can prevent cellular damage caused by chronic stress.
4) Meditation has the power to regain emotional stability
Emotion plays a significant role in our daily lives, irrespective of what age, gender or profession, we belong to. It takes a significant amount of effort to be able to get over something that creates stress and is not within our control.
Meditation as a tool is capable of enhancing positive emotions and moods. This helps in making the individual less susceptible to being affected by the daily chaos and stress. Meditators are well prepared to respond to negative stimuli without getting nervous or over-excited about the same. Among the various things that meditation can cultivate, mindfulness is one thing that improves mental health and clarity by multiple folds. Mindfulness plays a significant role in certain theoretical practices that have helped people in the past — these help in treating anxiety and certain mood disorders.
In conclusion
There is a lot of ongoing research that is being done in the field of meditation today. Meditation is playing a particular role in dampening the brain’s reaction to stress and eventually teaching it to stay calm. Universities are focusing on learning what kind of people are benefiting from meditation the most. Some studies are being conducted to check what is the ideal duration of a meditation session.
It’s just the beginning of a lot of research in the field of meditation, and there is still a lot to learn. Meditation has powers that are beyond human comprehension. Learn how to start here.